parshiot

Sunday, January 25, 2009

That he deliberately flubbed the oath is what Shirat Devorah believes.

Interesting.... it seems even Justice Roberts couldn't supply a Bible for the revised oath, despite the "abundance of caution" being applied and the much-hyped Lincoln Bible being made available by the Library of Congress - giving us more reason to believe that the fluffed lines were rehearsed beforehand, so that the real oath could be taken sans Bible. And all this from a man who made a very public point of attending prayer services before and after his inauguration.

The reason for this, I would guess, is that Obama is Gog and would not want to swear on a Bible. Heh.

A few points:

(1)The Lincoln Bible is a King James translation, containing both Old Testament and New Testament.

(2) Obama did not flub the oath. It was Roberts, trying to fix a split infinitive.

(3)John Roberts was a Bush appointee, a Republican, and a Catholic. Would he really be colluding with the Democratic candidate to avoid bringing God into the ceremony?

(4) Whether or not the first, flubbed oath satisfied the Constitutional requirements (it likely did, but the second oath was misafek), even so, Obama did take an oath on a Bible with the same message as the oath in the Constitution. The difference was a misplaced modifier. If there some benefit for Gog-bama to take a binding oath on a Bible separately, and take an oath of office later without one? What benefit accrues to him, exactly, in this conspiracy-theory scenario??

(5) Even if he never took the oath, he likely became president at noon regardless.

(6) The swearing on a Bible is only a "minhag", but does not invalidate the oath with its absence. And perhaps since this was just to fulfill a technical safek, they did not bother, since the "flubbed" oath with all the pomp and ceremony had it, and that was enough.

(7) Is any of this really worthy of comment? No, since the allegation is just so silly. But I've seen how these snowball in various communities, so I might as well put my two cents worth in early on.

There is a book Meshivas Nefesh by R' Moshe Feldman that corrects many of the TT's mistakes, as well as adding mareh mekomos and an index. The book contains a letter from the TT encouraging the author.

According to Rav Chaim Kanievsky (and the Stiepler's Hagaos)the Torah Temimah was a "yarei vichareid" and a Talmid Chacham. During WW2 any Nazi who tried to get to him to kill him, immediatly died. So great was his holiness.Yes, he did interact with maskilim - but is that, in itself, a chisaron?

personally, i see nothing problematic with this approach, and know others who did the same. even so, I have a problem with this particular interpretation of vayamesh choshech and as thick as a dinar, because I think it is wrong, and I think I know the correct interpretation...

The swearing on a Bible is only a "minhag", but does not invalidate the oath with its absence. And perhaps since this was just to fulfill a technical safek, they did not bother, since the "flubbed" oath with all the pomp and ceremony had it, and that was enough.

In addition, it can be argued that swearing on a Bible is the equivalent of taking the oath with a brakha. Since Obama was already yotzei by the first oath according to most opinions, and the second oath was only misafek, they may have refrained from using a Bible so as to avoid a brakha l'vatala.

There is a requirement for the oath to be 35 words al pi the Constitution of the US. Since there is doubt about the number of words, he had to say it over EXACTLY.

My take is that the sheer energy/power emitted by Obama threw the Justice off (quite amazing as is) and that indirectly Obama caused the incident (to invalidate his oath on a xtian bible). Saying it over without a bible is perfectly acceptable by the Koran, (i.e. using America's democracy against itself in order to overthrow the infidel).

We have been witnessing this in the situation of role reversal: the victim becoming the aggressor, and the aggressor becoming the victim. And especially now, with the fanaticals trying to bring to international trial Israelis who were leading the soldiers in their War against the terrorists in Gaza, ignoring entirely that Hamas was responsible for killing most of its own people.

Overheard: What do you call that again?
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Older fellow with glasses: I see that book in your taliis bag, called "Forgiveness". What is it about? New Age Guy: It is about how you have to forgive all t...

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parshablog is published by (rabbi) josh waxman (joshwaxman [at] yahoo [dot] com), a grad student in Revel, a grad student in a Phd program in computer science at CUNY. i recently received semicha from RIETS. this blog is devoted to parsha as well as whatever it is i am currently learning.